The retail industry is in decline. People commonly attribute the decline to three factors: too many malls, customers switching to online shopping and a change in mindset from materialism to experiences.
But what if we brought the online experience to offline shopping — would that counteract the latter two reasons? Customer Experience Drives the Way An estimated 73 percent of shoppers use mobile devices while shopping in a store to check reviews, product datasheets, usage guidelines and more.

Digital marketing has probably brought advanced contact management, personalization, marketing automation, retargeting and many other technological enablers into your organization, all in an effort to improve ROI and increase sales revenues. The needs and goals of sales and marketing dictate the use of these tools.

Organizers of last weekend's Marketing Festival in the Czech Republic analyzed 500 conferences from around the world before choosing 18 promising speakers. Having soaked up their collective wisdom, I found three lectures gave me the most to think about and I've summarized them here. The Three Kings Paddy Moogan started

Strong Leadership and Clear Communication A bee colony acts as one creature. But no matter how big the colony (whether 10,000 or 40,000 members strong) there is only one queen. And only she is able to manage the colony and give birth to new bees.

The eight YouTube SEO tips that follow brought my company's videos to the top search position at YouTube for keywords such as “marketing automation,” “lead scoring” and “personalization.” 1. Metadata Name of the file -- While filling in metadata after you upload a video

Just as we start piling on layers come late fall or make plans for vacations in August, if we know the peaks and troughs of demand in our industry vertical we can focus efforts and budget spends at the right time of the year.

Why is it that the things we know are good for us are so hard to start? Think exercise, eating right, starting that blog, taking risks. Research from Ascend2 shows marketers find marketing automation one of the most difficult tactics to execute, despite admitting that the more extensively they adopt

In their pitch for lead scoring, salespeople will name dozens of reasons why its adoption is crucial for your business. But you know that the proof is in the pudding. So let’s see what those already using it have to say.

Petr Passinger writes about the hard earned marketing lessons he learns in his day to day job and shares these lessons monthly with CMSWire's audience. While some people might hide their methods, treating them as proprietary information, Petr sees it as an opportunity for other marketers to learn from the

For 2014 I Wish that big data will always be used with deep customer insights, and that lead nurturing will always be used with accurate targeting, personalization and persona profiles in mind. I hope that 2014 sees the focus of business websites continuing to shift from machines to people and their needs -- the centerpiece of our efforts. In turn, I hope that internet users will consider the online marketing industry to be a guiding angel rather than an annoying evil. -- Petr Passinger, senior business analyst, KenticoTitle image by Amodiovalerio Verde (Flickr).

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